The Shadow - Foxhound Part 6

DAWSON whimpered, squared his shoulders, stood white-faced at the edge of the balcony. The masked man got across with a lithe leap. He held out an imperious hand, and Dawson gripped it and followed with a shudder.

The wall of an adjoining warehouse formed an angle with the steep rear of the Dorsetshire Apartments. There was a light ladder propped in the shadowy angle. It led aloft to the roof of the warehouse. Painted black, it rested unseen against the dark stone.

Dawson caught at the rungs and ascended slowly. The masked man followed.

The ladder was drawn up the moment both men reached the roof. It vanished over the edge of the warehouse cornice.

Far down in the street below sounded the shrill wail of a police siren. A radio car was rushing at top speed toward the apartment house. The masked man chuckled at the ominous sound. His chuckle was ironic, as cold and clear as the tinkle of ice.

CHAPTER X.

AT CEDAR LAKE.

AN hour and a half after Jimmy Dawson had been revived and rescued from danger of the police by the masked stranger with so curious a knowledge of drugs, The Shadow stood alone and thoughtful under the stars of a peaceful countryside.

He stood at the sheer edge of an unpaved private road. Beneath his feet a rocky cliff dropped forty feet into a wooded chasm. Through the dark blur of twisted branches, The Shadow caught the starlit gleam of a lake enclosed cup-like by the steep hills that surrounded it.

Road, lake and surrounding hills were all privately owned, the property of one man. So was the house at the end of the lonely dirt road that swept onward past the brow of the cliff.

Arriving at Denville, The Shadow had discovered that Madge and Doctor Hanson had engaged a taxicab and driven to Cedar Lake. He had been unable to discover who their mysterious host was. All that the sleepy station agent could tell him was that the lake, the hills and the stately house had been purchased quite recently by a wealthy gentleman from New York who desired complete privacy.

The Shadow's car was hidden a quarter mile back in a leafy covert. He had climbed over a fence and was about to descend the cliff in order to approach the house from the rear without discovery. His goal was a series of steep wooden steps that stretched from the rear of the house to the lake, far below.

He slid over the edge and began to descend cautiously, taking his time but moving with steady progress. It was slow, dangerous toil, but in ten minutes he reached the bottom and plunged into the dense underbrush that lay between him and the rear of the distant house.

The land was utterly wild and uncultivated. He heard a squealing scurry and saw a rabbit vanish into darkness. Th.o.r.n.y bushes ripped at his cloak and menaced his eyes, as he fought his careful way through. He stepped into a clearing, and before him was the long outline of the wooden staircase that led aloft to the dark rear of the cottage. He was gliding forward when a voice said, with grim distinctness: "Halt!"

THE voice came from a wooden platform of the staircase itself. A man was crouched beneath the overhang, the barrel of his pistol making a faint gleam in the darkness. He emerged warily, keeping the ominous circle of the muzzle in line with The Shadow's heart.

Almost instantly, another figure joined him - a woman! She, too, was tense with murderous rigidity as she crept forward beside her companion.

For an instant, The Shadow surmised that the unpleasant pair were Doctor Hanson and Madge Payne. He raised his robed arms obediently and waited for them to approach. His easy surrender was deliberate, a trick to draw them closer.

He saw now that the woman was a stranger, someone he had never seen before. Blond, blue-eyed, an utterly lovely face except for her eyes. Their blueness was like polished gla.s.s. He read hate, fear and murder in them. She was like a beautiful animal, poised, ready to spit death.

She whispered harshly: "It's The Shadow!"

"Right!" the man breathed.

"Let him have it!"

"No. Too much noise!"

The Shadow was watching the man. He saw vaguely in the darkness a small,crescent scar on the jutting chin. It was the mysterious stranger he had observed talking with Alonzo Kelsea in the restaurant on 42nd Street.

"Get a rope!" the scar-faced man snarled at the woman.

"Where?"

"Down at the canoe landing, you nit-wit! Make it snappy!"

His eyes veered for the fraction of a second - and in that instant The Shadow leaped. His upraised hands chopped downward with a powerful blow. The edge of his palm struck the pistol and sent it flying from the grip of his enemy.

The next instant, they were locked in a death grapple. The Shadow's fingers tore loose and clutched for the killer's throat. He tried to swing him like a shield in the face of the panting woman. She had whirled at the instant of the attack and come plunging back.

Not a word was spoken by any of the three. The harsh gurgle of the scar-faced man, the sc.r.a.pe of The Shadow's feet on the rocks, the panting gasp of the woman as she began to circle about the two fighters, was the only sound in the starlit darkness.

The awkwardness of her companion gave the woman the sly opportunity for which she was waiting. The scar-faced man stepped into a small declivity on the slope, lost his balance, pitched backward, dragging The Shadow with him.

The Shadow knew what was coming, but quick as he was to roll, the woman was quicker. She was over him like a flash of blond lightning. The downward swing of her strong wrist caught The Shadow partly on the ear, partly on the cheek bone. He felt the numbing blow of a pistol b.u.t.t. His grip on the throat of the man beneath him relaxed.

DAZED, The Shadow began to crawl away on hands and knees. Blood dripped from his cheek and ear. He dropped behind the jagged top of a rock outcrop and the muzzle of his gun menaced his two a.s.sailants.

To his surprise, he saw that they had abandoned the attack, had whirled, were already racing away toward the distant lake below. In the clearing they formed a distinct double target. The Shadow could easily have shot down both of them with two quick explosions of his leveled gun. But his trigger remained unpressed.

He allowed them to escape. He, too, had no desire to advertise his presence to the trio he knew were at this moment in the cottage above. Madge Payne and Doctor Hanson were up there with a suitcase that might contain the rolled canvas of the stolen Colette painting.

Who was the third man? Was he the fugitive Thomas Springer - Foxhound - the wealthy estate owner from New York?

The Shadow wiped the blood from his face. He rose, vaulted the rough rail of the wooden steps and began to climb noiselessly through the darkness toward the rear of the house above him.

The house was built in tiers against the side of the cliff, so that each story formed a projection below the floor above. A light showed dimly through a gla.s.sed veranda on the lowest floor, and The Shadow dropped close to the ground and wormed his way quickly to the side of the house. It looked like a huge dwelling, with probably a dozen or more rooms.

There was a rain pipe at the side, that emptied into a metal barrel, half filled with water. The Shadow tested the pipe, found it strong and solid enough to bear his weight. He ascended like a black bat in the darkness, his cloak hanging loosely like the spread of limp wings. He had removed his gloves, and as he hung below the level of a lighted window, the flash of his girasol made atiny spark that changed eerily in the blackness of the night from yellow to orange and then to a deep, glowing purple.

He peered through the pane of the lighted room. He saw that it was a bedroom and that it was empty. He was hanging limply from the sill merely to relax his body for an instant and take the cramped pain from his muscles.

The sharp, cutting edge of the rare jewel on his ring made only a faint buzzing sound against the pane. The noise was covered by the wind in the trees and the incessant chirp of millions of crickets. A circular section of the pane came loose and was dropped into the water barrel below with a faint splash.

Through the opening in the gla.s.s went the long black arm of The Shadow, and a moment later the catch of the window was turned and the sash had risen.

THE SHADOW was now inside the bedroom. The light he had observed came from an empty hallway beyond. He crept up oaken stairs, making no sound on the rich carpeting beneath his feet. Above, the hall branched into a corridor that led right and left. On this floor must be the parlor and living room.

A voice said, suddenly: "I've brought the suitcase. That's all you need to know."

The voice was low-pitched, menacing. The Shadow recognized that voice. He was listening to Doctor Bruce Hanson. A moment later, he heard Madge Payne's murmur.

The voices seemed to float through the open doorway of a small anteroom.

The Shadow peered, saw that the room was empty, saw also a doorway that pierced the side wall; a long sofa was opposite. He entered the room on hands and knees, making straight for the sofa.

From this point, he was invisible from the doorway. He moved the sofa outward from the wall, slowly, an inch at a time, until he was able to squeeze behind it.

A damask covering hung in front to within an inch or so of the floor. He was able to see below the fringe into the huge living room beyond.

A man was sitting there smilingly, staring at a locked suitcase on the floor in front of the armchair in which he sat. Staring at him from either side were Hanson and Madge Payne.

The genial host, the unknown "rich man from New York," was Alonzo Kelsea!

Kelsea leaned, opened the suitcase. It contained no rolled canvas of a stolen painting as The Shadow had antic.i.p.ated, but something equally surprising. It was crammed with packages of currency.

"Fifty grand," Kelsea muttered, and there was avarice in his thick, lingering accents. "Thank you, doctor, for bringing this to me. Who had it - Jimmy Dawson?"

"Dawson is small fry," Hanson growled. "You've got the money you were promised. Now I want the painting.

"What makes you think I have it?"

Hanson's gruff snarl was cut through by the clear cry of Madge. Her eyes were ruthless, menacing, like the expression The Shadow had seen in the eyes of the blond companion of the scar-faced man.

"Because," Madge said, curtly, "no one else could have hijacked that painting but you. Bruce took it from the museum, pa.s.sed it to me. I hid it in my apartment and -"

"And you suspect I got hold of it there, eh? I'm sorry, but you're wrong.

Jimmy Dawson, who seems to have become a very neat double-crosser, must have -" "Dawson," the doctor cut in, with grimly restrained fury, "came to my apartment, not Madge's. In case you care to know, he's lying drugged and helpless in my bathtub, waiting to be disposed of later."

"Again you're mistaken," Kelsea drawled. "Would you be surprised to know that Dawson is neither unconscious, nor in your apartment at this moment?"

The lawyer's bland voice hardened.

"Think that statement over and don't try to threaten me - even if you are Foxhound!"

"I?" Hanson laughed, gratingly. But there was a flicker of fear in his eyes, as he glanced toward Madge. The face of the girl had become deadly white.

"That's not true!" she gasped. "Is it, Bruce? You're not really - Foxhound?"

HANSON didn't answer her. Instead, he sprang at Kelsea as the latter rose from his chair. A violent blow sent the lawyer crashing back on the padded seat. A gun whipped from Hanson's pocket and menaced Kelsea. The latter had lost his bravado. He was deathly pale.

"Don't kill me," he whispered.

Hanson's voice rasped over his shoulder at the paralyzed Madge.

"Get downstairs and search this house. Search every room! I came here for that Colette painting and I mean to get it!"

"But - but Bruce -"

"Do you hear me? Go!"

The Shadow, watching her from beneath the sofa, saw doubt, fear, a dawning horror in her eyes. Without a word she crept from the room, obedient to the command of the man she loved.

CHAPTER XI.

THE BOATHOUSE POOL.

FOR perhaps ten minutes, the strange tableau in the living room persisted.

Neither man spoke. Then The Shadow began to move slowly from his place of concealment in the adjoining room. His sharp ears had heard something not audible to either Kelsea or Hanson.

The angle of the doorway in the hall hid him from sight, as he crawled across the rug and reached the hallway. He descended the stairs noiselessly to the bedroom through which he had made his entry. It was from this room that the faint sound had come. His gaze moved toward the window, and he saw at once that someone had pushed the sash a good six inches higher than he had left it.

There was a faint reek of perfume in the room. To the Shadow's nostrils, the vague heliotrope odor immediately conjured up a lithe, pantherish woman with blue eyes as hard as agate. The blond companion of the man with the crescent scar!

He was out the window and down the water pipe in an instant. In the soft, spongy earth below he saw the confused imprints of shoes. The trail ended on the top landing of the long wooden staircase that led through dark underbrush to the unseen lake far below.

The Shadow hurried downward. He knew that Madge was a prisoner. He realized, also, that she was an innocent p.a.w.n in this queer web of deceit. Her love for Bruce Hanson had drawn her unwillingly into a desperate murder maze.

The lake was velvet-black, twinkling faintly under the starlight. There was no sign of Madge or her two abductors. The concrete canoe landing wasbare, except for the long shapes of two upturned canoes. Another canoe was in the water, moored by a thin cord to a rusted ring-bolt in the concrete.

A few yards to the left was a two story boathouse, its windowpanes blank and dark. It was obvious that no one was inside, and for an instant The Shadow was puzzled.

Then he knew the answer! A faint, yellowish glow tinged the depths of the water on the lake side of the boathouse. The light issued from beneath a stout wooden barrier that closed off a water entrance. The bottom of the barrier was well below the surface.

THE SHADOW let himself quietly down into the lake. The water was ice-cold and quite deep. He was glad of that; wading would have made utter silence impossible. He swam slightly below the surface, in order to avoid any betraying splashes.

When he was directly opposite the closed water-gate he lifted his head and inflated his lungs with a deep, full-drawn breath. Then, with the sleek, black grace of a seal, he upended and dived straight downward.

The faint yellow light in the water was a sure guide. The Shadow swam under the mossy, slippery edge of the wooden barrier. He came up slowly, r.e.t.a.r.ding his rise with a fanlike flutter of his cupped palms. There was a squat shadow above his head, which he knew to be the outline of a floating rowboat. He came up between the rowboat and the slimy edge of concrete.

He was in a small, enclosed pool some fifteen feet long and a dozen feet wide. The light here was yellow and brilliant. It came from a cellar room adjoining the pool. Screened by the concrete and the dark overhang of the empty rowboat, The Shadow waited.

He heard with abrupt suddenness, the shrill voice of the blond woman with the agate-blue eyes.

"This dame's a dirty little liar! She came here with Doc Hanson to put the heat on Kelsea. She knows where Kelsea hid the painting. We got no time to waste. Give her the works, Stoner!"

There was a swift, masculine oath.

"I told you never to mention my name when we're on a job, you fool!"

"What's the diff? Who's going to hear us down in this blasted tomb?"

"The Shadow may have trailed us."

The blonde laughed. "He's up in the house on the cliff watching Kelsea and the doc."

She was the toughest-looking female The Shadow had watched in many a day.

His eyes at the edge of the concrete pool observed her and the scar-faced companion whom she had called Stoner. Both were glaring at the terrified face of Madge Payne. She was flat on her back on the floor of the boathouse cellar.